Astronomers spot first evidence of dark galaxies

SANTIAGO — Astronomers in Chile using a powerful telescope have observed what appears to be evidence of the existence of dark galaxies, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced Wednesday.

Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies from the early universe that are believed to be the building blocks of today’s bright, star-filled galaxies, said the ESO, an intergovernmental organization supported by 15 countries.

“For the first time, dark galaxies — an early phase of galaxy formation, predicted by theory but unobserved until now — may have been spotted,” the ESO said in a statement.

“Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, an international team thinks they have detected these elusive objects by observing them glowing as they are illuminated by a quasar,” it said.

The ESO is the most advanced astronomical observatory in the world, and operates three sites in Chile.

The Very Large Telescope (VLT) array — a cluster of four telescopes that can view objects four billion times fainter than objects visible to the naked eye — is housed at the ESO’s Paranal site in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

“Our approach to the problem of detecting a dark galaxy was simply to shine a bright light on it,” researcher Simon Lilly said in the release.

“With this study, we’ve made a crucial step towards revealing and understanding the obscure early stages of galaxy formation and how galaxies acquired their gas,” added his colleague, Sebastiano Cantalupo.